G’Day everyone, Dutch here! Welcome to my little place in the Universe! Going to do a short blog here before venturing out… waiting for the warmup…. had a few inquiries about me donating blood so thought I would do a quick one here about it… here’s some music to browse by….

Soooooooooo, put your troubles aside, pull up a chair and visit a spell…

To begin with, I’m a regular at the blood center… now I can’t make it every time, for any number of reason’s, but try to as much as I can… every 56 days I’ll get a card and/or phone call… when they were still calling from the center itself, one of the ladies who knew me would call and say "this is the Champaign County Blood Center, today we’re having a special on Pepsi and cookies, I highly recommend the peanut swirl, thank you, bye bye"… what that is all about is after you donate you have a choice of drinks, cookies, crackers, etc… unfortunately no adult beverages or steak and eggs, but I’m working on it..

In 2006 I became a member of the 4 Gallon Club by donating 4 gallons of blood over time..

I remember one of the moments, a number of years ago, when they first moved into the new building… it was still in the stages of completion, the contractors would work and night and then have it suitable for donations during the day.. a lot of the work wasn’t completed yet… anyway I went in to donate, went through the paper work, and went to the couch to give the blood.. Well, the young lady that took care of me was having a bad day.. I could tell she was upset, plus the thumb screw on the blood pressure cuff wasn’t working properly.. but pressing on she pumped up the cuff, inserted the needle then tried to let the pressure off, thumb screw wouldn’t work.. I jumped in, put my finger on the needle while she worked on it, could see the tears coming, I, without thinking, moved my hand to help her, the needle popped out and a shot of blood splattered on the wall… I put my finger on my arm to stop the bleeding, she finally got the thumb screw loose but was upset.. She look at me through the tears and said "I’m sorry and I guess you’ll be leaving" and I said " No, you have the other arm to try again"… she did, with a new machine this time, and all went well…. when I got ready to leave, she walk up to me, kissed me on the cheek and said "thank you".. The last I heard that young lady is working in one of the bone marrow labs at Mayo’s Clinc..

here is the pin that came with the certificate..

They would also like for me to do a Apheresis procedure… keeping it simple, basically what that is, you set in front of a machine like this, it is a kind of centrifuge…

They connect one arm to the machine to retrieve the blood, and connect another arm to the machine to put what they didn’t want back.. It takes 1 1/2 – 2 hours and you can watch a movie while the procedure is going on.. I give them a hard time about it, I tell’m I’m not overly impressed about the movie selection, no shoot’m up western, etc. and they say the idea is to try to relax me… and I bring up the subject ; how do I know I’m getting "MY" blood back.. I mean, after a half a century of eating fried chicken, taters and gravy, brartwurst, etc to get the quality of blood I have, how do I know I’m not getting the blood back from some vegetarian who eats celery and drinks carrot juice.. The lady in charge looked at me, smiled and said "You don’t" .. I’ll give it a go one of these days..
Here is a picture of a pin given to me by the Masons...

They are required to ask you a half dozen or so questions… by now they run through them pretty rapidly with me and I usually have them answered before they finish… before I started going to the nearby church to donate, there was a young nurse I hadn’t seen there before… after I filled out the paper, she come in and said I need to ask you these questions… I said "lets try something different and I’ll ask them" and without even seeing the paper ask the first question to the letter… she smiled and said "you’ve been here before, haven’t you".. I said a "couple of times"

Then there was another young lady who, after the procedure, would always say "see you in 56 days".. and on one comment I said "wait a minute, you know I might be on vacation, or at a party, or fishing or something".. she turned to me, pushed her glasses (like Ben Franklin glasses) down the bridge of her nose and said "Woller (she always called me Woller) you DON’T want me to have to come get it" and with that turned and walked away.. she has a way with words, don’t she??? … actually those darling ladies are regular sweethearts, and they have their personal problems to contend with also, so I try make things a little easier by being a happy camper and we joke around quite a bit...

I need to get going but in finishing this up I was thinking… here is a handful of medals I earned as a volunteer Marine in Vietnam…

proud of them to be sure for I defended the flag (which a number of people some leaders of this country didn’t and/or wouldn’t do) and what the flag stood for (something that has been used by some to force their ideology on to others) could be another blog but I don’t have the burning desire to "whip a dead horse"…. but here are a couple of medallions I’m more proud of..

A look at the back of one of the medallions;

Why do you ask… because with a drop of blood I was able to help save the life of another creature without harming or taking the life of another creature… with a drop of blood I was able to do more good, without creating hate, pain and suffering, than a trainload of bullets, bayonets and bombs ever will.. So yes I’m kind of proud of those dollar two ninety eight medallions…

Well, I gotta get going, sorry about being long winded today…. Sooooooooooooo everyone have a smilin’ gooooooooooooood day full of Peace Love and Happiness and I’ll see you next time if the good Lord’s willin’ and the creeks don’t rise..

Had a dear lady ask me if I was feeling a bit "frisky"… Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssss, ma’am I certainly am …. spring is coming and I am….

G'day everyone, Dutch here! Welcome to my little place in the Universe! Got lots accomplished yesterday, taking it a little easy today preparing for the weekend... winter is still here, at least through the weekend, but staying upbeat about it all.. in spite of the weather I still thought it was......

here's an update on my tomato seeds...

Going to be busy this weekend, may go to...

to the auction and flee market... the picture of the sign was taken last year, of course... it sounds a lot like this....

will also check the flea market for old fishing lures and see if I can find one to catch my eye, I collect them... and maybe there'll be some items for the yard this time of the year...

Forecasting in the 50's next week so getting plans made Sunday for going outdoors.. yard work, walks, maintenance items... not quite ready to go fishing yet..

Supper is going to be simple tonight, good ole tomato soup and BLT'S (bacon, lettuce, tomato on toast)...

Well, didn't have all that much to say today, just wanting to say....

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo everyone have a smilin' goooooooooooooooooood day full of Peace Love and Happiness and I'll see you next time if the good Lord's willin' and the creeks don't rise...

How about it, any Texas two-steppers care to join me in a little Cajun fiddle......

G'Day everybody, Dutch here! Welcome to my little place in the Universe! On a lunch break again and thought I would do a short blog..Gonna be cloudy and cold till Monday and maybe some snow tomorrow but gonna stay upbeat.... Gonna do something a little different with the music... Thought about putting them on auto-play but changed my mind, you can either listen to both, one or none...How coooooooooooooool is that... a little cajun instrumental music here, one is the standard blue grass called "Flap Jack" and the other is a crazy Cajun gone electronic guitar and it's called "Bug Juice"... a couple of toe tappers...

Sooooooooooooooooo put your troubles aside, pull up a chair and visit a spell...

and the crazy Cajun....

Been working out in the shop most of the morning moving stuff around waiting on a warmup outdoors.. took some time to water the big Phil.....

We have an arched ceiling that goes to the peak of the roof and that's the only place it will fit.... from the rim of the pot to the longest tralier is a little over 7 feet..... been making plans for walks, fisihing trips and working in the garden and such....

... here's my walking outfit, will be wearing summer clothing of course.....

you can see my walking stick and my new camera is attached to the end (by my ear), the stick furnishes a steady base and the camera is always at the ready.... and here is my fishing gear...

again willl be wearing more summer like clothing, you see my mini-vest which has my flies and other tools for fishing.. I will be taking my camera then also... and next, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllll, sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't .......

Gonna be a grillin' and a chillin' and gonna cook split chicken breasts on the grille for supper today...

I melt a combination of butter and vegtable cooking oil in a sauce pan... about 1/3 oil to 2/3's butter, the oil helps prevent sticking on the grille.. I add to that black pepper/garlic powder/poultry seasoning to taste, put some in the syringe and inject it into the chicken breasts... I make enough to use for basting later.. how much depends on one's personal taste...

Again, in a crock pot I'll put some green beans and sliced potatoes.....

This time I'll use the veggies out of a can...drain both.. put poataoes on one side, beans on the other (I don't mix them) and add a little tap water... then I spinkle a little chopped onion over the veggies and a couple of pinches of bacon grease (seen in the cup saved from cooking breakfast).... I then cook for about 3 hours on Low, not much more than that....

People ask me why I like cooking in a crock pot, because I can do other things while the food is cooking and there is no hassle at supper time....

Well, that's about it for today... got a few things to do the finish up... sooooooooooooooooo everyone have a smilin' goooooooooooooooood day full of Peace Love and Happiness and I'll see you next time if the good Lord's willin' and the creeks don't rise...

Here is the macaroni and cheese recipe I use... I usually start it around 3 PM so it will be ready around 6 pm or earlier... don't want to cook much past 3 hours, I usually put it on warm when ready...

G'day everyone, Dutch here! Welcome to my little place in the Universe! Had lunch and letting it settle so thought I would do a short blog here... gonna let the Statler Bros. furnish the music, they're my favorites, couldn't decide to start with one, put one in the middle and have them and Johnny Cash finish....

Soooooooooooooooo, put your trouble aside, pull up a chair and visit a spell......

Well, as you know we got another shot of winter yesterday, mainly sleet/ice crystals..

and at times the sleet and ice crystals were coming down pretty hard aided by 30 mph winds.

If you look at the above picture, in the background between the building and the tree you see a shaded area at the end of the field... that's a hedgerow (trees for those not in the know) about 1/4 mile (400 yards) away... visibility was less than that at times... in the overnight we got about a 1/2" of snow to go on top of the ice and this morning looked like this..

Verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry slick!!!... maybe some flurries tonight and Fri. night but next week they're talking of a warm up..maybe spring will get here... Ok, Statler Bros. #2....

Well, got the kitchen floor sweept and mopped... what, gentlemen, you ask that I do this... Yepper, sure do... I lived a 1/3 of my life on the farm and 4 years in the Corps and you learn to help yourself... until I was old enough to do bigger chores and handle the equipment, my job as the oldest was to help mom when she needed... one of my specialties was making homemade butter... we had a cream seperator in the basement... looked a lot like this one only it was newer , circa 1939, and had a small electric motor on it..

Dad would go out and milk the cows and bring in enough mile to make butter with, he would pour it in the top, it would go thru some stainless steel fins and the skim milk (to be feed to the hogs) would go in one container and the cream in the other.... I would then take the cream to the kitchen, mom would get the mixture ready, put it in a hand crank butter churn and guess what IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII got to do...... that was just one of many chores I had to do....

Check out the tomato seeds and they're starting to come up...

The red arrows are pointed at some sprouts... then I got the bird house I'm working on ready for somemore painting later, worked on it a little yesterday.....

it's a pirate ship..... Chicken salad sandwich spread sounded good so I made some of that... here is my recipe if anyone is intereseted.....

you shred the chunk chicken breast with a fork before mixing... staying on food, going to have BBQ pork steak, homemade macaroni and cheese and creamed cauliflower for supper... I'll put the steaks in the crock pot, pour my BBQ sauce over them and then cook them on Low for about 5-6 hours... I would leave a 1/2 cup of sauce out and warm up and cover the steaks just before eating... in the summer I would take the steaks out of the pot and put them on the grille for a short period of time... Here's my recipe for the sauce if anyone is interested...

I don't simmer if I put it in the pot, just if I'm going to use it as a sauce on the grille... also here is my recipe for Creamed Cauliflower... the condensed milk is the same as evaporated milk...

Well, I hate to leave good company but need to get a few things done to finish the day.... soooooooooooooooooooooo everyone have a smilin' goooooooooooooooood day with Peace Love and Happiness and I'll see you next time if the good Lord's willin' and the creeks don't rise...

Ok, Johnny and the Statler Bros... the floor is all yours......